[520] in Athena User Interface
Re: minutes of 14dec2000 micromeeting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Tibbetts)
Fri Dec 15 15:29:29 2000
Message-Id: <200012152029.PAA01817@multics.mit.edu>
To: "Susan B. Jones" <sbjones@MIT.EDU>
cc: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>, "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU>,
"andrew m. boardman" <amb@MIT.EDU>, aui@MIT.EDU, tibbetts@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:30:21 EST."
<v04020a05b66021631ee3@[18.152.1.82]>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:29:24 -0500
From: Richard Tibbetts <tibbetts@MIT.EDU>
On 12/15 "Susan B. Jones" <sbjones@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> So is this a worthwhile thing to do as part of the usability test or is it
> unnecessarily dangerous?
I don't know if it is worthwhile or not.
Changing their theme is probably the hardest and most dangerous thing
that users will think of on their own. It is one of the more "cool"
features of Gnome/Sawfish. It is the most significant customization a
user can make using on the GUI, in general. So it may be important
that users clearly understand what they are doing and how to revert
back to their old setup. On the otehr hand, it may not be worth
testing on unfamiliar users, since people usually don't get around to
it until after they are fairly comfortable with the system.
> Is theme an Athena thing? a UNIX thing? a Gnome thing? Is it something
> that your run-of-the-mill Athena user knows about?
Its not an Athena thing, and run-of-the-mill Athena users will not be
aware of it. It is a relatively recent development, but more and more
Unix (read Linux) applications are supporting themes (also called
skins). You are probably best considering them a GNOME thing.
GNOME has theme support, so that you can apply a theme and customize
all of your applications consistently. GNOME themes tend to only
change the visual appearance of the application, and do not touch
functionality. Other individual programs support themes as well.
Sawfish uses themes to modify look and behavior. Mozilla (the upcoming
version of Netscape) has extensive theme support (calling them skins
or chrome), which mostly effects the appearance and placement of buttons.
They tend to be a relatively easy way (from the programmer's
perspective) to give the user a whole lot of rope to hang themselves
with. Users, especially Linux users, are coming to expect them as an
easy way to dramatically customize their environment. Novice users are
likely to be introduced to them by friends when they ask "How do you
make your Athena account look like that?"
tibbetts
-*- http://www.mit.edu/~tibbetts -*- finger tibbetts@monk.mit.edu -*-
